gender and religion

evidence of patriarchy in religion

* religious organisations: mainly male dominated such as the orthodox Jewish church where women cannot be Rabbis.
* Places of worship: students segregated according to sex. similarly they may not be able to participate fully in worship. menstruating women are not allowed to touch the Qur’an.
* sacred texts: feature the work of male gods
* religious laws and customs: give women fewer rights then men, for example in divorce.

the decline of the goddess

* until about 4,000 years ago female goddesses were included in religion with figures of naked goddesses had been uncovered in Asia and Europe
* the female sex was seen as closer to nature
* women have not always been subordinate to men in religion

Armstrong

* male aggression exhibited through the invasion of these societies by more male dominated cultures from the Northern hemisphere.
* this meant that male gods became more important, introducing more aggressive spirituality.
* monotheism was the final death knoll for the goddess and the major world religions have all adopted the same male god

patriarchy in scriptures

* Scriptures: ‘blessed art thou O lord that i was not born a slave, blessed art thou O lord that i was not born a woman’
* ‘wives be subject to your husbands, as to the lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church’

prominent female characters in the bible

* Eve and Mary mother of Jesus, serve to reinforce patriarchal ideas regarding the dangers of female sexuality and the virtues of motherhood

Qur’an and women

* the sacred text of Islam contends that men are in charge of women.

sexuality and religion

* women’s bodies and sexualities are also felt to be dangerous by many religions
* because women menstruate and give birth they are considered to have a great capacity to ‘pollute’ religious rituals.
* their presence may distract the men from their more important roles involving worship.

women in religious organisation

* women barred from serving as priests in many of the worlds main religions until recently.
* Islamic groups, orthodox jews and the roman catholic church continue to exclude women from the religious hierarchy.
* 1992 The church of England voted to make the priesthood at last open to women.

Women opposed to priesthood

* women against the ordination of women
* according to this group the full acceptance of women is blasphemous deviation from biblical truth

Mary Daly

* Christianity itself is a patriarchal myth
* christian story eliminated other ‘Goddess’ religions
* Christianity is rooted in male ‘sado-rituals’ with its ‘torture cross symbolism’ and that it embodies women hating.

Simone de Beauvoir

* role of religion is to oppress women
* religion is used by oppressors to control the oppressed.
* religion acts as a way of compensating women for their second class status
* religion gives women the false belief that they will be compensated for their suffering on earth by equality in heaven.

El Saadawl

* wasn’t the religion itself that was repressive but it was the development of monotheistic religions.
* men wrote the scriptures and the interpretation of them was almost exclusively male'-orientated. This has on many occasions enabled men to use religion as abuse of power.

religion not patriarchal

* in Catholicism being a nun can be viewed as either oppressive or highly liberating.
* Judaism has allowed women to be Rabbi’s since 1972
* even some christian religions particularly Quakerism have never been oppressive to women.
* gender neutral language has been introduced to many hymns and prayers and the requirement to love, honour and obey is now optional in the Christian marriage and ceremony.

Linda Woodhead

* criticises feminist explanation that simply equate religion with patriarchy and the oppression of women.
* she argues that there are religious forms of feminism ways in which women use religion to gain greater freedom and respect.
* uses the example of women using the hijab or veil

Watson

* the meaning of the veil to those who wear it, is very individualised and cannot be generalised as simply oppressive

american religious fundamentalism

* america likes to control their fertility through abortion has sometimes ended in violence with right-wing, religious fundamentalist pro-life groups adopting near terrorist tactics to close clinics down.

fundamentalist groups in Iran

* fundamentalist groups in Iran, Israel and Afghanistan and parts of the former Soviet Union similarly insists on ruthlessly conserving or reinstating women’s traditional positions.

Cohen and Kennedy

* - the desire to restore fundamentalist religious values and social practices is associated with the fear that if there is any real change comes to improving women’s role it will undermine the foundations of tradition and religion.